Away
by OfficerKennedy
Summary: Leon goes away on a mission and has taken a few precautions to make sure Chris behaves himself in his absence! Chris/Leon. M for language.


Notes:- Written for Zet Sway who as well as being an awesome reviewer, also has the power to tear exams new assholes!

Away

"There's your tea Chris"

He puts the mug down in front of me like that'll make all the damn difference in the world. That's right, a mug of tea will make it all better. Would've been better if it was coffee. Or a beer. That might've gone some way towards easing the pain.

"You would feel so bad if someone broke in here and we had hot sweaty man sex over the kitchen counter" I say haughtily.

"Well I imagine if someone broke in they'd be more concerned with getting our valuables as opposed to having sex with you" He replies smoothly. He puts the last of his stupid shit into his stupid shitty gun belt for his stupid shitty mission with the stupid shitty Secret Service.

"I'll never forgive you for this" I fold my arms across my chest. That'll teach him. Everyone knows that you don't mess with me when I do that. He doesn't seem to care. He grabs his PDA off the coffee table and shoots me a bit of a glare. Ok, so what if I tried to hide it earlier? I made a mental note to find a better hiding place than underneath the bed.

"Don't be such a drama queen" He replies. "I won't be gone for a long. A couple of weeks tops"

I don't know why I'm being such a 'drama queen' as he puts it. It's not like I'm really bothered that he's going away for a couple of weeks. I mean, yeah, of course I'll miss him and yes, I'm really gonna miss the sex but he'll come back and then everything will be right the world again. Besides, I could get up to stuff while he was away…

"And don't get up to anything while I'm away" He chides.

"What"? I splutter, utterly outraged. Silently I'm seething. How the hell does he always know what I'm thinking? Must be some Secret Service trick they taught him when he joined. Crazy Ninja shit or whatever.

"I know you Chris Redfield," He continues threateningly. "And if you think that as soon as my back is turned you're going to go back to your oafish ways then you've got another thing coming" He smirks at me. "I've taken a few precautions to make sure you don't"

I snort but don't offer much more in the way of a response. He shakes his head and disappears off to the bathroom. Probably to check his hair or something like that. I've never known someone so obsessed with their hair. Anyway, I'm more interested in these so-called precautions that seem to be designed to stop me having fun.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not talking about sex or anything like that. I love Leon to death and there's no way I would ever cheat on him with some other guy or girl. My oafish stuff, as he likes to call it, is the important things in life like how many takeaways I eat or how long I play on the Xbox or how many beers I can have. Well fuck, I've gotta enjoy myself somehow while he's away haven't I?

I kissed him goodbye, told him to look after himself and the dropped him off at the train station. Then promptly set about breaking all three of those damned rules.

As soon as I got back to the apartment I switched on the Xbox and cranked the TV up loud. When the gunfire of a good old Call of Duty Team Death match proved too much for the dick who lived downstairs and he started to bang on his ceiling, there was no Leon around to tell me to turn it the fuck down and remind me that we weren't the only ones living in the building. It was great!

Leon wasn't there to stop me going to the pizza place either. He wasn't there to tell me I didn't need to order that extra side or maybe to get a medium pizza instead of an extra large. I even ordered garlic bread! Usually I'm not allowed. For some reason, Leon thinks garlic bread is all that is evil. I trotted back to the apartment with my prize and proceeded to wolf it down in less than fifteen minutes and damn, it tasted good, well, apart from the garlic bread but the less said about that the better.

After finishing off my gourmet meal I dumped the pizza box on the coffee table and screwed up all the greasy paper from my fries, onion rings and the remaining garlic bread and threw it in the general direction of our kitchen. It was great not having Leon around to nag me and ask me to pick up my crap from the floor and what was it about us Redfields? Were we born in a barn?

I hot footed it down to the local bar and enjoyed a few beers and a couple of games of pool before heading back home. I wasn't once told to watch how much I was drinking and perhaps I should switch to soft drinks in between beers. There was, of course, a little stab of guilt that told me Leon wouldn't be happy if he knew I was doing all this and yes, he only worried about my drinking because he cared but I shut that up with the last beer.

I woke up the next morning with a throbbing head and shaking limbs and when I finally peeled myself out of bed and into the kitchen to get some painkillers, it was then that I discovered the first of Leon's precautions in the form of a lovely note pinned to the fridge.

'Just because I've gone away doesn't mean you can turn this place into a total tip in my absence. If I come back and find the place a dump then you're going to find out exactly how well trained I am at hand to hand combat. Don't try to get Claire or Jill to do it for you. I've already warned them that you'll ask and they've promised to refuse. Love you. Leon S Kennedy'

Fuck. He'd actually signed the damn thing 'Leon S Kennedy'. Loser. As if I lived with another Leon? I sighed heavily and grabbed myself some aspirin. I nearly tripped over the balled up takeaway paper as I sorted out a glass of water. To teach it a lesson I kicked it upwards as hard as I could. God knows where it landed. Probably the top of the cupboards. I was too busy dealing with the motherfucker of a headache.

The evening rolled round and even though Leon had left various ready meals in the freezer for me I thought fuck it and walked to the pizza place to get myself another boxful of greasy heaven. It was, after all, the only real cure for a hangover. It was then that I met another of Leon's precautions.

"I'm sorry Sir, but I can't serve you"

I looked at the young kid behind the counter with the greasy forehead and the lame uniform as if he'd just spoken to me in some other language. Had he just refused me service?

"What"? I gave him my best don't-mess-with-me look but, obviously braver than he looked, the kid just shrugged.

"Sorry Sir but Mr Kennedy made me promise," He offered by way of explanation, as if that made it alright! "He said you could only have it one day a week"

"What? Look, I'll give you twenty bucks"

"Sorry Sir" The kid shook his head.

"Thirty"? I offered trying not to sound too desperate. The kid shook his head again and frowned at me like I was some naughty child! "Look you. I'm in the BSAA and I was in S.T.A.R.S"! My last ditch to attempt to sway him. Whatever Leon said to him had got him well and truly adamant. When he didn't respond I shrugged. "Fine" I spat. "You won't find my darkening your doorway ever again"! I said with a tone of finality. "I'm done with this place" I turned on my heel and started to stalk out. That'd show the bastards!

"See you next week then"! The kid shouted after me cheerily.

It took me ages to find another pizza place. That's the thing with takeaways pizzas. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground whatsoever. They're either really good or really terrible. Unfortunately for me, when I did finally find another pizza place, it was one that was really terrible.

I went back to our apartment and sat, eating my fucking horrible pizza, feeling incredibly sorry for myself and amazed at the lengths my boyfriend was prepared to go to stop me having a little fun. Well fuck it; I didn't need him to have a good time.

I retired to our bed and treated myself to a lovely little hand job. That's the thing about masturbation. It can always cheer you up. Well, it always did used to cheer me up. But since doing the whole settling down thing I realised that solitary wanking just isn't the same anymore. When you've shared your bed with someone who has undoubtedly the most talented mouth you've ever known, lying in bed alone and playing with yourself seems a little…lonely.

So I couldn't have good pizza and I couldn't have good sex. So that meant it was another night down at the bar. Kicking some other guy's ass at pool was bound to make me feel better. I was still trying to convince myself that I felt so bad because of Leon's stupid precautions not because I was missing him. So when Leon phoned just as I was about to go out, I didn't tell him how good it was to actually hear his voice.

"Are you alright"? He asked me. I smiled gratefully. That's the thing about Leon. He was in some foreign country somewhere, probably risking his life, sneaking this phone call in between doing whatever he was supposed to be doing and here he was asking me if I was alright. Well, I wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily.

"Great" I said happily. "I'm having a wonderful time"

"Well that's good" He replied.

I listened to him talk on for a bit, going on about his train journey, doing his whole I-can't-really-tell-you-where-I-am routine and all of that and complaining about how hungry he was and how much he was missing me.

"Yeah, that's great. Get back to work for god's sake! You're eating into valuable drinking time here"! I interrupt. He sighs, tells me that he loves me and that he hopes to be back soon. I tell him to be careful because of course I want him back in one piece. Despite the fact that he frequently hinders my takeaway plans and watches my drinking, I do love him and if he got hurt I don't know what I'd do. Apart from break the neck of the person who'd hurt him of course.

On the short walk to the bar I had a terrible thought. What if Leon had taken precautions here? God…I could just picture it. Going up to the bar only to be told I'd already drunk there yesterday and couldn't for the rest of the week. Forget any occupational hazards Leon might encounter, I'd have to kill him myself.

Fortunately though, when I walked up to the bar I got my beer with no problem. It looked like Leon hadn't thought of everything after all! I was just about to sit down and enjoy a tall frosty one when who should turn up?

Brad Fucking Vickers. My baby-sitter for the night.

I hate Brad. Well, no, I don't hate him. He's a friend and all it's just he has that same weirdo obsession as Leon does. I didn't really fancy the idea of sitting with him all night whilst he counted up how many empty bottles I accumulated and the reporting back to Leon about how drunk I'd gotten and how many people I'd challenged to a duel. Talk about nagging by proxy!

So I had to listen to Brad prattle on until closing time about how rubbish he was with women and how he wanted to be in the Air Force and did I have any tips for him since I was ex-military? Yeah Brad, don't be a fucking chicken. There's a tip right there. I didn't say that of course. No, I sat with him and we had a couple of drinks before I switched to soft drinks.

By the end of that first week there was no denying it. I wanted Leon home. He phoned me as much as he could, not often enough for my liking, and just hearing his voice made me miss him even more.

By Monday I'd noticed that there was a horrible smell in the apartment. It smelt really unpleasant Almost choking. I suppose I'd noticed it a couple of days ago but then it hadn't been that bad. I just figured it was the dirty washing in the sink or the fact that I hadn't bothered to vacuum. But now it was terrible. It smelt almost rotten. So I grudgingly did the washing up, ran the vacuum over the carpet and even emptied the bin. Nothing seemed to get rid of the smell. I even had a shower just in case it was me but still, nothing. I was stumped. I decided to go round to Jill's place and ask her.

"Jill, how do you get rid of bad smells"?

"Ones caused by you"? She raised an eyebrow. "HAZMAT I would imagine" She grinned. God. She thinks she's so damn funny.

"It's not funny! There's a really horrible smell in our apartment and if Leon comes back and smells it then he's going to give me hell" I replied. "He keeps phoning to check up on me"! I wailed. Then, innocently, I chose to ask. "Does Carlos ever annoy you"?

If there's one thing I should've learnt a long time ago, it's that you shouldn't ask a women whether her partner annoys her. Talk about opening the floodgates! I always thought that Carlos seemed like one of those good, easygoing guys you could just get along with. To listen to Jill go on about him you'd think he was the damn anti-Christ. Or Wesker. He left his clothes on the floor just metres away from the dirty laundry basket. He used said dirty laundry for, and I quote, 'nefarious purposes'. Whatever that meant. She continued. He waited until she'd just about finished cleaning before he offered to lend a hand. He couldn't cook to save his life. He hung around with smelly bikers. He always seemed to disappear on missions whenever her period was due and, to top things off; he used her computer to look up porn and her credit card to pay for it.

When she'd finally finished assassinating Carlos' entire character, she drew a breath and told me to buy some scented candles or air freshener and do a full top-to-bottom clean of the whole apartment! Leon didn't deserve to come back to a toxic waste ground because frankly he deserved better having to put up with me and my oafish ways!

I left after that. She seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood. Must've been because Carlos was away on a mission.

I went back to our apartment and stayed there just long enough for me to grab a few essentials and load them into my backpack. It was a warm day and that only seemed to make the smell worse. I couldn't wait for Leon to get back and sort it out.

So where was I going to spend the night? Jill obviously wasn't an option. I suppose I could go to Brad's because he would cook for me like Leon would but it did mean I would be giving him more to report back on. Claire and Steve were away on some holiday and although Barry would put me up, I couldn't stand his kids.

A hotel it was! Luckily I had Leon's credit card!

I checked in and booked one of the most expensive rooms in the building. I was looking forward to being pampered, having hot meals made for me and room service just a mere phone call away. The bed was huge too! Soft, plump pillows and the best mattress I'd ever slept on.

And it was lonely.

It's always lonely in hotel rooms. After the whole business with the Spencer Mansion, I spent a lot of my time moving around the globe, staying in various hotels and while the idea of being on your own and away from the stresses and strains of other people sounds good, you quickly realised there's no fun being separated from the ones you love.

Even the bed seemed to lose its charm. It was sterile. It looked sterile. It smelt sterile. The walls weren't decorated with our posters or photographs. They were white. Leon's clothes weren't in that wardrobe. It was empty. I know that if I go into the bathroom, it won't be his shampoo and hair products neatly lined up on the shelf. I didn't want to think about our apartment and particularly about that terrible smell.

Leon was good at smells. Good at stuff like that in general. He knew how to get things sorted for us. Make things nicer and more comfortable. He knew how to whip up some fantastic meal with what looked like crap all in the fridge. I rolled over in the stupid sterile bed and wished that Leon was beside me. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not considered to be a sentimental guy. I'm not really good at telling people how I feel. So to realise that I felt this way really shocked me.

I love Leon. I love him with all my heart. When we first got together I felt so relieved that he actually wanted to be with me. I worried that he would change his mind when he saw what an oaf I was and that we were just a terrible mistake. I watched him so closely, waiting for that sign that he'd worked out things weren't right, that maybe we should be just good friends and nothing more. But it never came. That sign never happened. We stayed together and we grew. Our relationship blossomed into what it is today.

I can't handle things as well as he can. I get too worked up. Too temperamental and too angry. I start shouting. Start telling things like it is, telling too many harsh truths. That's where Leon comes in. He calms, he amends. He'll tell me that I'm wrong for shouting but all the while he'll back me up. When we're in our apartment he'll tell me to shut up but I always know he's in my corner. He's out there right now. Somewhere. Fighting for what he believes in and it's a dangerous job. He's come home before will allsorts. Cuts, bruises, fractured bones.

As I'm thinking about him I vow that I'll change.

"So how come I couldn't get hold of you"?

That's the first question he asks when I pick him up from the train station. He looks absolutely exhausted but he's home earlier than planned which is always good. As soon as he's got into bed and had a few hours rest I'm sure he'll be up for making up for lost time.

"You could've tried my cell" I reply defensively.

"Answer the question" He pushes because, let's face it, the distraction technique was never going to work on him.

" Erm..well…I stayed at a hotel" I admit. I can't come up with a decent sounded excuse off the top of my head. Plus, I don't really like lying to him.

"You stayed in a hotel"? He might be exhausted but he can still adopt that slightly nagging tone. "What the hell happened? You didn't burn the place down did you"?

"Of course I didn't"! I reply. "Give me some credit"! I take my eyes away from the road long enough to look at him. God damn Leon Kennedy and his stupid laser beam eyes that can see into your soul. I sigh heavily. "There's this smell in our apartment…"

"You forgot to empty the bin"? He suggests in a bored voice.

"Well duh" I say. I may be an oaf but I'm certainly not a moron.

"Maybe it's a blocked drain" He says. Of course! Blocked drain! So that's what it is. Why didn't I think of that? "Did you phone a handyman"?

"Erm…no…not exactly"

"Can't you do anything without me"? He asks. Well no actually, I can't. Ok, so I can. I just don't want to. Not that I'll admit that to him.

"Well isn't that nice"? I reply sarcastically. No doubt he'll remind me that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but whatever. "You go away to god knows where and you start yelling at me the moment you get back! I've missed you if you must know Mr Kennedy" I feign hurt. "I'm so sorry if I'm such a terrible disappointment to you"

"Don't be stupid" He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek even though I'm driving. It feels so good after nearly two weeks. "I can't wait to get home. Bad smell or not. Don't worry about it. We'll get it sorted. Phone someone to come and sort it out. We'll open the windows and get some scented candles and then we'll go to bed" He grins at me. "How does that sound"?

"Awesome"! I can't help but grin now even if I am still a little worried about the bad smell. Leon's home and now everything can go back to normal. Balance in the galaxy is restored once more.

"And guess what"? He gives my thigh a quick squeeze. "I'm so happy to be back home with you I'm going to treat you to a pizza! You can even get some garlic bread if you want. How about that"?

Shit! Shit Shit Shitty Crap-Bastard!

"Chris? Are you alright? Look. The lights are changing, you'd better get moving"

The drivers behind me start to honk their horns as the lights turn green. All I could think about was the rotting remains of the garlic bread on top of the cupboard…

THE END.


End file.
